ANZAC Day 2019 – searching for the meaningless in horror
For a juvenile culture and immature country like NZ, attempting to comprehend the magnitude of our slaughter; the contemptible way Māori were treated on returning from war; the lack of support services for those mentally scarred; the sacrifice of pacifists and the pointless murder of our own brutal invasions is more akin to unblinking sheep nervously stepping into the Lourve Museum to study contemporary Art.
We simply lack the sophistication to even begin to ask those questions.
Every ANZAC Day it’s not a case of ‘lest we forget’, it’s a case of ‘lest we remember’.
As the dead groan under their weight at the horror with which we cheerfully threw them into, they scream at us to never make the same mistakes.
We always make the same mistakes.
Right now we have the NZDF hiding a war crime in Afghanistan and the recent atrocity in Christchurch brought a medieval war to our homes.
This ANZAC Day it feels like we are desperately searching for the meaningless in horror, like a wilful forgetting in exchange for hollow gestures.
Haven’t we grown up as a country that will no longer feed the dogs of war with the lives of our brightest and youngest?
When we do go to war it should only ever be for the right reasons and never simply to please an overseas power.
Aren’t these the lessons we are supposed to have learned when we walk around our War Museums staring at the cringe worthy posters calling on men to fight for ‘King and Country’ as we pass name after name after name after name of the ‘glorious’ dead’?
Isn’t that what we should be solemnly promising the dead at dawn? That they have not died in vain and that we have learned to avoid conflict without flag blinded nationalism that pointlessly slaughters so many?
We have learnt nothing and in the wake of the Christchurch atrocity we are no longer sure who we are.
Accusations that a Poet as brilliant as Baxter was a rapist seems to sum up our existential identity crisis better than anything else right now.
The Gunner’s Lament
A Maori gunner lay dying
In a paddyfield north of Saigon,
And he said to his pakeha cobber,
“I reckon I’ve had it, man!
‘And if I could fly like a bird
To my old granny’s whare
A truck and a winch would never drag
Me back to the Army.
‘A coat and a cap and a well-paid job
Looked better than shovelling metal,
And they told me that Te Rauparaha
Would have fought in the Vietnam battle.
‘On my last leave the town swung round
Like a bucket full of eels.
The girls liked the uniform
And I liked the girls.
‘Like a bullock to the abattoirs
In the name of liberty
They flew me with a hangover
Across the Tasman Sea,
‘And what I found in Vietnam
Was mud and blood and fire,
With the Yanks and the Reds taking turns
At murdering the poor.
‘And I saw the reason for it
In a Viet Cong’s blazing eyes –
We fought for the crops of kumara
And they are fighting for the rice.
‘So go tell my sweetheart
To get another boy
Who’ll cuddle her and marry her
And laugh when the bugles blow,
‘And tell my youngest brother
He can have my shotgun
To fire at the ducks on the big lagoon,
But not to aim it at a man,
‘And tell my granny to wear black
And carry a willow leaf,
Because the kid she kept from the cold
Has eaten a dead man’s loaf.
‘And go and tell Keith Holyoake
Sitting in Wellington,
However long he scrubs his hands
He’ll never get them clean.’
James K Baxter
1965
Lest we forget
The first casualty in war is truth
Lest we forget
The narratives of many that laid down the events that happened at the time leading into war
Lest we forget
The victors rewrite the history of a war
Lest we forget
To ask what really happened
Lest we forget
That lies said often become what is accepted as truth but many
Lest we forget
When we try to understand why so much misery and sorrow came to many
Lest we forget
Those broken lives that were left behind
Lest we forget
Those who made profit from the misery of others and war
Lest we forget
The legacy that may well lead to it all happening again
Lest we forget
To remember those who refused to kill fellow humans and suffered for that strength
Lest not forget
Our duty to seek truth and question what we are told
Lest we forget
To abhor the glorification of blind sacrifice and war
Lest we forget
To guard ourselves from being groomed to accept another war
Lest we forget
That our vigilance may not be easy
We must not forget or it will happen again.
The GCHQ has announced that they are to take the burden of cyber security from the NZ population by building into systems and apparatus the capacity to censor information detrimental to the NZ population.In other words ,thought control a la 1984.Is this what my father fought for in the Second World War, my Grandfather in the First World War, and my Uncle machine Gunned to Death by the Japanese in the Pacific ? I doubt it !!!
That isnt thought control, and censorship was even more rife during your father and grandfathers times.
Where did the 4.5 million number come from? Sounds like fake news!
Nobody I know cares about ANZAC Day .. I know lots of people, yet to meet any who care.
Hearts and mind, hearts and mind .. ANZAC is yet another sanitized public holiday which doesn’t bring the country together in the slightest.
Zack,
You really need to get out more.
Those conscripts died for freedom dontcha know. Which the Turks had nicked off with. In the end though they all just sat around campfires swapping cigarettes and corned beef, singing folk songs amirite Peter Jackson
Me again. Forgot to mention that when the Turks nicked off with our freedom, they were in Turkey at the time. Someone must have left it at the embassy in a briefcase or something like Pulp Fiction. But anyway it was a good old fashioned ineptly commanded machine gun and man charge meat grinder hoe down and everyone was all the better off for it. Not like we should never have gone there or anything. Ha, watch the thought crimes people. But the best part is how the turks are totally cool with it now. They love it! They love it so much that zero Turks are actually allowed at those Gallipoli ceremonies because they might start trying to kill everyone! Oh, but it’s a sweet time for the local tourism guys though or so I’m told. And it’s a little money spinner for some here in good old NZ too amirite Peter Jackson again? I don’t mean to pick on him folks, sorry. That would be Bad Taste. Which he knows all about evidently. Kia Kaha Peter
There was a terror threat, by the way:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12225080
That is of course, unless the Turks or even the ‘media’ made it all up, right?
If it was true, no wonder they let nobody else in.
Every year the same adoration of glory of dying for EMPIRE and the then ruling upper class, I get sick of it.
That though is what happened at Gallipoli and other places in WW1, the very young will have NO idea of all this, unless they take a special interest in history and study the various reports.
And NZ Inc was part of that Empire, even when it was declared a Dominion, in effect it was under British rule, and in Britain then, it was a profound class system, the upper class and aristocracy held the power, and they saw with the war against the Axis Powers their wealth, businesses and trade routes threatened.
Hence they went to ask for ‘help’ even from the inhabitants of their colonies and overseas dependencies, and the lords and the ones in power there, they felt obligated, to send their young and not so young to fight and die for EMPIRE, nothing else.
To present this in such a farcical way, as if they died for ‘freedom’ and ‘for us’, that is a perversion of history, but the Brits and others have always been good at this, and to turn it into grandiose theatre and ceremony.
This country has too many ignorant and sycophants, I lament it all the time, as long as so much reverence is given to this sad and hopeless event, shedding blood needlessly, and lying about the truth behind it all, we will never get any real progress in New Zealand.
They carry on as per usual, as the powers that control things here want people to fall for this BS. They do hence drag in the ethnic and cultural minorities now, to attempt to make them part of the game of lies, to maintain the appearance, it is all ‘honourable’ and ‘for the good cause’.
Wake up, people, wake up to reality, you continue to being conned on a massive scale.
Anzac day is a grooming process.
Criticism of it and of alternative information to the inaccurate history officially presented, is slated as unpatriotic.
More war on the way.
Truth must not be allowed to interfere with that.
Totally unjustifiable Kiwi incursions at UK/US request, into Korea and Vietnam show the process.
Watching this ANZAC Day theatre on TV makes you realise what BS it really is. Prior to the ‘service’ broadcast at 11am, and again after, they run endless promos for the TV channel’s programs, show entertainment and other silly programs, and broadcast also much commercial advertising, to sell goods, services and so forth, which we do no some case not even need.
It is like a prostitute celebrating virginity in a church, while having entercourse, is it not?
‘Intercourse’ it was meant to read, of course, in a church.
If we are going to remember our soldiers who died do it on May 8th the day WW2 ended not on the day we followed our colonial masters and attacked the Ottoman empire. Helping to stop the evil of Hitler and the immediate threat of Japanese conquest is the only war we can be comfortable with. And dont get me started on why we went to kill Dutch people in Africa or more recently why we made a hero of a man who went to Afghanistan to kill the citizens of that country
Who got rich.
That is what it was about.
Yea! John W…spot on. Next ANZAC Day let’s give the bankers in their temples our full and UNITED attention.
Good idea Helena.
How about we also give attention to their sucking billions out of NZ’s wealth on the other 364 days of the year as well, and their control over politicians and MSM.
If we are going to remember our soldiers who died do it on May 8th the day WW2 ended not on the day we followed our colonial masters and attacked the Ottoman empire. Helping to stop the evil of Hitler and the immediate threat of Japanese conquest is the only war we can be comfortable with. And dont get me started on why we went to kill Dutch people in Africa or more recently why we made a hero of a man who went to Afghanistan to kill the citizens of that country
Grabbing the oil from the Ottoman Empire and stalling puppet was an Anglo / Zionist / US affair but NZ helped without hesitation.
Hey but you left out Korea and Vietnam.
ANZAC Day has been heading towards being a big mess for some time as those with nationalistic and conservative tendencies try to make it New Zealand’s national day instead of Waitangi
The official story behind the ANZAC deal is of course created by those who have and interest in that version.
Your parents may have wisely told you there or at least two sides to every story. Lies are not a new phenomena.
So dig around and sample other narratives and check them over as you should with all information you weigh up. Never rely on one source alone
Just a sample of the rich field of observations and history surrounding WWI.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/world-war-i-the-gallipoli-campaign-the-untold-story/5445098
WWII led on from this. Much the same players.
Thanks for the information, although I still treat it with caution, I quote:
“A Myth Obscures the terrible Truth
Over the last century, in both Britain and Australia, Gallipoli has been turned into a heroic-romantic myth,77 a myth promoted by court historians and pliant journalists in order to hide the stark truth. It was a ruse, a sop to the Russians to keep them in the war in the belief that allied forces would capture Constantinople on their behalf. Put into the hands of incompetent generals and admirals, starved of troops, determined leadership, ill-equipped, ill-advised and certain to fail, the attack on Gallipoli as an integral part of the imperial strategy was a stunning success.”
There have been many reports about Gallipoli, but only the still dominant Anglo Saxon centric ones tend to romanticise the soldiers and the cause they fought for.
Another summary of the historic ‘event’:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallipoli_Campaign
Agreed Marc.
Every information source has to be treated with caution as well as exploring background information related to players and events.
Its and ongoing open minded process that is necessary.